You can review and adjust several important settings in the Zoom web portal. These settings all control how the meeting works, and managing these settings before starting a meeting can create a smoother experience for you and your participants. These settings also allow you to secure your class session, and UW IT Connect has an in-depth overview of the different ways you can protect your Zoom meeting space and class sessions.

Profile Settings

  • Customize your personal meeting link to use your name. This can help you differentiate between your personal meeting link and other meetings that you schedule. We recommend that you avoid using your personal meeting link for scheduled class sessions; if you do, be sure to enable the waiting room, require that meeting participants authenticate (sign in to Zoom), or use a password to protect the meeting.
  • Double check your time zone, as all meetings scheduled will be based off this setting.

Meeting Settings

  • Host video: this setting allows you to start meetings with host video on, by default.
  • Participants video: this setting allows you to have participant video on, by default, when they join a meeting. Participants can change this during the meeting.
  • Audio Type: this setting determines how participants can join the audio portion of the meeting. Most participants will join by computer audio, but you can enable both computer audio and telephone.
  • Join before host: this setting controls whether students or colleagues can join a meeting before you start it. We recommend leaving this setting disabled for most live class sessions and virtual office hours.
  • Mute participants upon entry: this setting, if enabled, can help mitigate audio issues at the beginning of a session. Participants can un-mute themselves at any time.
  • Enable breakout rooms: this setting allows the meeting host to start breakout rooms. 
    • Enable breakout room pre-assign: this setting allows you to create breakout room groups while scheduling a meeting.

The settings that you choose here will be applied to all future meetings, but you can also adjust settings for an individual meeting when you schedule it. 

Recordings Settings

  • Allow hosts and participants to record a local file: this setting allows students to record their breakout sessions, which may be useful.
  • Enable cloud recording (Record active speaker with shared screen): this setting allows you to store your recording on the Zoom web portal, share it via a link, or download it.
  • Save chat messages from the meeting/webinar: this setting allows you to review chat messages after the session.